Seat 4: Fedor Holz (Germany) - 1,471,000
In 2012, Germany’s Fedor Holz had just $19,288 in tournament earnings. In 2013, he won $123,231 playing tournaments, and a year later $202,143. Beginning in 2015, his career really took off when he won $3,492,368, and he cemented his poker legacy in 2016 when he won an astounding $16,484,154 playing poker.
He “retired” after that to focus on other ventures, including his business Primed Mind, but he’s still managed $3,583,701 in tournaments thus far in 2017, not including whatever he’ll win today. Holz finished runner-up to Steffen Sontheimer in Event #2 for $550,000, which means he has a legitimate shot of winning The Poker Masters Purple Jacket™.
A victory would also give him his sixth seven-figure score. His biggest cash to date was the $4,981,775 he received for winning the 2016 World Series of Poker $111,111 One Drop High Roller for a bracelet. A month before that, he finished runner-up to Rainer Kempe in the 2016 $300,000 Super High Roller Bowl for $3.5 million. In January 2016, he won the Triton Super High Roller Philippines for $3,463,500, and a moth before that he won the WPT Alpha8 Five Diamond World Poker Classic for $1,589,219.
Oh, we’d be remiss if we didn’t mention that Holz, who has had his entire Poker Masters journey filmed by a documentary crew, is also an accomplished online player. In 2014, he won PokerStars’ WCOOP Main Event for $1.3 million.
“I’m confident that I’m going to win the Purple Jacket,” Holz said at the start of the Poker Masters. We’ll find out whether or not he does later today.